


too close to the sun

by imagines



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Schmoop, bring on the pet names I say, don't mind me sneaking in meta, episode 7 is life, victor has a lot of feelings, victor just wants to emotionally validate everyone, victor needs to talk about his feelings, yuuri does not do emotions well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:12:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9232325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagines/pseuds/imagines
Summary: The kiss happens so fast that Yuuri isn’t certain it happened at all. (Set immediately post-ep7.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Worlds is two months away, it's negative windchill here so I can't go skating myself, and who knows how long til a Season 2. Obviously I gotta fill my time somehow. Also my headcanon says Victor loves Johnny Weir and you can’t stop me. Also also, I am 200% on board with the Russian pet names fanon.
> 
> Realization several days after posting: Hahaha I forgot how GPF works, so no, they would not have gone to the NHK. LET'S PRETEND THEY DID.

The kiss happens so fast that Yuuri isn’t certain it happened at all, though the shrieks from the audience would appear to be proof enough. Later that evening, #victuuri is trending everywhere. In the hotel room, Yuuri watches video clips from various angles and—yes—it _definitely_ happened. Someone has already drawn fanart. _Several_ someones, in fact. Gracious.

“I like how you’re looking at me right there,” Victor says, peering over Yuuri’s shoulder at the screen on his phone, where video Yuuri is gazing at video Victor as if he’s all that exists in Yuuri’s world.

“Oh my god,” Yuuri says, and shoves his phone under a pillow.

Victor waves his own phone at Yuuri. “@JohnnyGWeir says we’re his OTP!”

“He does _not_.”

“It’s implied. Heavily.”

 

At a press conference after the medal ceremony, one intrepid reporter asks about “what we’re all wondering, I’m sure—is there anything _more_ going on between you two?”

A _yes_ would be quite the bombshell, but a _no_ would break at least one important heart, and Yuuri freezes. But as always, Victor remains collected, if uncomfortably outspoken. He leans down to the microphone the reporter holds out. “Officially, I’m Yuuri’s coach. Unofficially… if you’d like it to be more, that’s okay with us!”

“Why did you say that?” Yuuri demands to know, back in their room at the hotel. “Anyone who hears what you said is going to think we’re—we’re—”

“Lovers?” Victor asks. He’s curled up in a nest of blankets in his bed. “Does it bother you that people might think that?”

“No! Or—yes—I don’t know, it just bothers me because it’s not true.”

“If you’d like to go ahead and make it true, be my guest.” Victor smiles, and Yuuri’s knees turn to jelly.

“Shit,” Yuuri mutters. “Don’t _do_ that.”

“Do what, exactly?” Victor asks, all innocence.

“Saying things like that. Things you don’t mean. You’re making a joke out of something that isn’t a joke.”

Now Victor is holding Yuuri’s gaze with alarming intensity. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“So you want—you would—”

“If you wanted that, yes.”

Yuuri absolutely, positively cannot breathe or think. This is too much new information to process at once. “I—I’ve got to go to sleep, Victor. I’m sorry.”

Victor’s gentle smile is back. “That’s quite all right. Sweet dreams!”

How can Victor be so unflappable? Yuuri always feels at least a little bit flappable, and right now he is extremely flapped indeed. Oh god, what if he _can’t_ sleep? He’s never known what he wanted—person-wise—until now, when it’s right there in front of him, apparently his for the taking, if he could just work up the nerve to take it. What if he tosses and turns all night, kept awake by the images now coming unbidden to his treacherous mind? What if he—

But then it’s morning, and Victor in the kitchenette preparing tea, humming to himself as if an incredibly awkward conversation hadn’t just happened the night before. Or is it only awkward to Yuuri? Victor does seem to have a… unique… sense of propriety. “Mor~ning!” Victor sings upon noticing Yuuri is awake. "Let’s go to the rink today!”

“Victor, the competiton just ended yesterday!”

“But the next event is coming up in a few days.” Victor downs half his tea in one go. “I have some ideas I want to try in your programs. I won’t work you too hard today, I promise.”

 

On the ice, everything is clear and easy. Victor demonstrates—Yuuri copies. Victor directs—Yuuri performs. Simple. Emotions he can’t express in words flow effortlessly through his movements. He wants to tell Victor something—something important—but he can’t pin down what it _is_ . So he throws it all into his routine, this feeling of being _charged_ , like a thunderbolt is about to explode out of him.

When he’s finished a run-through of his short, he skates over to Victor to get his reaction.

Victor’s crying. But smiling at the same time. That’s overall positive, right? “It’s never been so clear until today,” Victor tells him. “You’ve really mastered your _eros_. I couldn’t have told you how to show it better than that.”

Yuuri ducks his head, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Thank you. I did my best.”

“You always do.” Victor puts his hand under Yuuri’s chin, gently tilting his head up to look into his eyes. “It is an honor and a privilege to work with you. I feel lucky to be here.”

Yuuri blinks hard, willing himself not to look away from that gaze. “I don’t know what to say,” he confesses.

Victor shakes his head. “You don’t need to say anything. Just skate. I can hear you so clearly when you skate.”

  
On the plane to Japan for the NHK Trophy, Victor falls asleep on Yuuri’s shoulder, the contact so electric that Yuuri winds up paging distractedly through a novel he’s been meaning to read, realizing around page twenty-four that he hasn’t grasped any of the plot so far. Giving up, he tucks the book next to him in his seat and resolves to hold very still and take deep breaths. The place where Victor’s head meets his shoulder flashes in his mind like a glaring light, impossible to ignore. Yuuri checks his watch. Three more hours to go, and Victor _loves_ sleeping through entire flights.

  
With an hour left, Victor wakes just long enough to mutter something about being _so comfortable_ , put his hand on Yuuri’s thigh, and fall asleep again. Yuuri begins practicing deep-breathing exercises. Next time, he’s going to demand they fly coach instead of first class, where perhaps Victor will not be as comfortable and there will be less of this nonsense.

 

Everything on the ice is love. Everything off the ice, however, is as inelegant as a penguin dancing ballet. Nothing in Yuuri's life so far has prepared him for someone like Victor, whose heart is printed in neon lights on _both_ sleeves. Which is to say, no matter how hard Yuuri tries to put it out of his mind, Victor's heart keeps him up at night, flashing through his windows, sneaking into his dreams.

In his dreams he wins gold and Victor drops to his knees on the wet mats to say things Yuuri hadn’t known he wanted to hear. In his dreams he falls on all his jumps and Victor won’t look at him anymore and eventually moves back to Russia. In his dreams only the best or the worst happens, and no matter what he dreams, he wakes up with a headache from gritting his teeth.

“Is something bothering you?” Victor asks on one of these mornings.

“Why do you ask?” Yuuri asks, hunting in the nightstand drawer for aspirin.

“You seem tense lately. I just wondered if there’s any way I could help.”

Doubtful, as these days all of Yuuri’s problems begin and end with Victor. “I don’t think so, but thanks.”

Victor eyes him thoughtfully.

Oh no. A thoughtful Victor quickly becomes a perceptive Victor, and Yuuri isn’t sure he’s awake enough yet to have his secrets hauled into the light.

“Are you worrying about the things I’ve been saying to you?” Victor asks.

Oh _no_.

“Because if you are,” Victor goes on, “I’ll stop. I don’t want to make you worry. I can keep this all very professional.”

“I don’t—” Oh god, why can’t Victor just make this easy and go on pretending nothing is happening? Saying things aloud makes them real. Making them real makes them dangerous. “I don’t want you to stop.” _I don’t want you to leave_ , he adds silently.

“Ah,” Victor says. “Then I won’t stop.” Slowly, he climbs out of his bed and moves toward Yuuri’s, like he’s approaching a stray cat he doesn’t want to run away. He kneels at the side of Yuuri’s bed. “Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?”

“You have all the right words!” Yuuri bursts out. “You say all these smooth things, and it gets to me, and you _know_ it gets to me. You _like_ that you get to me. And now everything depends on whether I win or fail. You’re betting everything on me.”

Victor nods. “You feel a lot of pressure.”

“I feel crushed by pressure. Yeah.”

“Yuuri—” Victor reaches out and touches Yuuri’s fingertips. “Yes, I’m betting on you. I believe in you. And no matter how the series turns out, you can’t possibly let me down, because you are pouring every atom of your being into your skating. You’re doing more than I could ever have asked for.”

“But you could ask me for anything.”

“I know I could. And you’d do everything in your power to accomplish it. But I never want to ask you for too much.”

“You haven’t ever asked for too much,” Yuuri whispers. The room is fading at the edges, everything narrowing until all he can see is Victor. “I didn’t know you were afraid, too.”

“Anyone would fear flying too close to the sun,” Victor whispers back. “I don’t want my wings to melt, _solnyshko_.”

“I think your wings are safe if—if you wanted to kiss me again.” Yuuri hardly believes himself, doesn’t know where this bright speck of courage is coming from, but by god he’s going to use it while he has it.

“I want to kiss you _many_ times.” Victor kisses him gently, quickly, exactly like at the rink. “I want to kiss you many _ways_.”

The next kiss is a little bit harder and a lot longer.

“You know I’m yours, don’t you?” Victor says, leaning back just slightly, his breath warm on Yuuri’s lips. “I’m not leaving you, not ever, not unless someday you want me to. And not just because you ever win a gold medal. Which you will do, I don’t doubt, but Yuuri, I just don’t want to leave.”

“Then don’t leave,” Yuuri says with finality, and pulls Victor into the bed with him.

  
They attend another press conference before the short program, and once again, there’s another plucky reporter checking up on them. “So, it’s been a few days since your—display of affection!” she chirps. “Any new developments?”

“Nothing I’d call new,” Yuuri says, before Victor can speak. “It’s simple—we belong to each other!”

Victor’s smile is so blinding, it’d give the sun a run for its money.


End file.
